[408] Plutarch. Timoleon, c. 36. Ὁ μάλιστα ζηλωθεὶς ὑπὸ Τιμολέοντος Ἐπαμεινώνδας, etc. Polybius reckons Hermokrates, Timoleon, and Pyrrhus, to be the most complete men of action (πραγματικωτάτους) of all those who had played a conspicuous part in Sicilian affairs (Polyb. xii. 25. ed. Didot). Now the education of Dion (as I have recounted in the preceding chapter) had been something totally different. He was the member of a despotic family, and had learnt his experience under the energetic, but perfectly self-willed, march of the elder Dionysius. Of the temper or exigencies of a community of freemen, he had never learnt to take account. Plunged in this corrupting atmosphere, he had nevertheless imbibed generous and public-spirited aspirations: he had come to hold in abhorrence a government of will, and to look for glory in contributing to replace it by a qualified freedom and a government of laws. But the source from whence he drank was, the Academy and its illustrious teacher Plato; not from practical life, nor from the best practical politicians like Epaminondas. Accordingly, he had imbibed at the same time the idea, that though despotism was a bad thing, government thoroughly popular was a bad thing also; that, in other words, as soon as he had put down the despotism, it lay with him to determine how much liberty he would allow, or what laws he would sanction, for the community; that instead of a despot, he was to become a despotic lawgiver. Here then lay the main difference between the two conquerors of Dionysius. The mournful letters written by Plato after the death of Dion contrast strikingly with the enviable end of Timoleon, and with the grateful inscription of the Syracusans on his tomb. CHAPTER LXXXVI. CENTRAL GREECE: THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP OF MACEDON TO THE BIRTH OF ALEXANDER. 359-356 B. C. My last preceding chapters have followed the history of the Sicilian Greeks through long years of despotism, suffering, and impoverishment, into a period of renovated freedom and comparative happiness, accomplished under the beneficent auspices of Timoleon, between 344-336 B. C. It will now be proper to resume the thread of events in Central Greece, at the point where they were left at the close of the preceding volume—the accession of Philip of Macedon in 360-359 B. C. The death of Philip took place in 336 B. C.; and the closing years of his life will bring before us the last struggles of full Hellenic freedom; a result standing in mournful contrast with the achievements of the contemporary liberator Timoleon in Sicily.